What is Natal Hypnotherapy

Wendy Turner: Imagine giving birth without any pain whatsoever. Well, wouldn't that be a dream come true? Well, it's claimed by the hypnotists, it's possible to give birth in an almost dream like state without much pain at all. I am joined by Maggie Howell from Natal Hypnotherapy and her little boy, Jacob, and also, Chireal Shallow. Hello to both of you. Maggie Howell and Chireal Shallow: Hello! Wendy Turner: Hey! I'll watch my water. There we go. Chireal, come on, no pain? Hardly any pain? Is it true? Chireal Shallow: It's very true. Wendy Turner: You'll be the envy of women everywhere. Chireal Shallow: Well no, I listened to Maggie's CD and I gave birth to my twin daughters without any pain. Wendy Turner: Twins to boot. Chireal Shallow: Yeah. Wendy Turner: Now, I believe we've got some footage of that. Chireal Shallow: Yeah, that's right. Wendy Turner: Would you like to just talk us through it? Chireal Shallow: Well basically, I am having contraction. I know when the contraction is coming and so I just focused on some of the techniques that Maggie talked about in her CD and just focused on that, on relaxation and what's happening to my body. When the contraction is over, then I come back and I am fine and I am relaxed and happy. Wendy Turner: And I think probably we've noticed from that clip, actually, you are not making much noise, are you? Chireal Shallow: No. Wendy Turner: Really? Chireal Shallow: No, I was totally calm; it was the most amazing experience. It was beautiful and I didn't want any pain relief even though my midwives were kept saying, you know, are you sure you don't want any, and I am like, do I look I am in any pain. It was lovely, it was pain-free experience and I was able to actually enjoy what was happening and watch my babies come out and just enjoy the whole thing whereas I think sometimes when women give birth they are so focused on the pain, they actually mix the whole thing. Wendy Turner: At the moment. Chireal Shallow: Yeah, exactly. Wendy Turner: Okay Maggie, you are creator of all this. Maggie Howell: Yes. Wendy Turner: How did all of this come about? Maggie Howell: Okay, when I was pregnant with my first son, who is now five, my husband suggested I learn some self-hypnosis techniques. I went with very basic course, where I learned how to use these techniques to take myself into a deeply relaxed state and then give my sub-conscious mind some positive suggestions about an event in the future. I've then practiced the techniques for three months leading up to the birth. I've chosen the home-birth, I told them a few times in a day who did meet me, when I was doing hypnosis. Wendy Turner: Wow! What was her reaction? Maggie Howell: She actually wrote in my notes dot, dot, dot we will see. Not believing for a second. She did actually say, well I have go, pack it in, just in case. Anyway, it was actually her because I had such an amazing wonderful birth where I was in a lovely, calm, controlled state the whole time. I had a very long labor and that was fine. Wendy Turner: Noisy -- Maggie Howell: That short labors are great thing. And she was the one that suggested that I go and talk to other moms because she had never seen a first-time mom give birth so calmly and so quietly and just as if it's such a relaxed wonderful time to be. So I then started talking to other mothers and realized that my experience was something that was really unusual. So I decided to retrain and I became a clinical hypnotherapist, but always wanting to specialize in pregnancy and child birth. Wendy Turner: So the whole experience literally changed your life? Maggie Howell: Literally changed my life. I now have three children, used the same techniques for all of them and all three have been most beautiful, wonderful experiences. Even it's not about creating experience with no pain because I don't believe that's going to happen for every woman. The key thing is finding techniques that you can do yourself to make you feel -- dirty boy. Wendy Turner: It's all right, all the banging noise, if you wouldn't do it at home. Maggie Howell: He is -- the CDs. Wendy Turner: Around the studio. Maggie Howell: The key thing is for a woman to get to a point where she feels in control empowered and doesn't have the level of fear because so many women have when they are going to labor. It's the fear that's actually creating the environmental and the bodily conditions which create so much of the pain in child birth. Wendy Turner: Chireal, just from your experience, if you can, and it's been very difficult, can you describe the trance-like state you were in? Chireal Shallow: It wasn't -- so I was in a trance, didn't feel I was in trance. It felt like I was in control and I was almost aware of the things that were going on, but I was focused on just making sure that I was relaxing and accepting what my body was going through. So when I see the video of my birth, it seems weird because it doesn't look like -- I am talking and I was like yeah, yeah, yeah and then I go. Wendy Turner: But you didn't make that much noise? Chireal Shallow: But it does look -- it looks very strange because I am doing that and then I am going like that but it didn't feel as I was in a trance. It just felt like I was in control and that I was relaxed and just enjoying everything. Yeah, so -- Wendy Turner: Maggie, is there anyone this sort of doesn't work for? Do you have to be a certain type of person to accept this technique? Maggie Howell: No, I think, it's the first answer. I mean we've now worked with many, many thousands of women and -- Wendy Turner: I'll take these now. Maggie Howell: That's probably a good idea. We've worked with teenagers, with moms who have had multiple births, with moms who have caesareans, with tokophobia; real deep-rooted fear of childbirth and we've had successes with those moms. I think the most important thing is that moms find a way to have the belief and the confidence and the trust in their body that they can give birth. It's so easy to say to a woman, we'll, we've been doing this since time began but because everywhere in our society, we see these awful images of giving birth, it's infiltrated, most women sort of sub-conscious, that the belief is birth will be dreadfully painful. Wendy Turner: So suppose a case where you are saying that you are almost bracing yourself so much against it. Maggie Howell: Absolutely! Well, the way birth becomes very painful is that when a woman is frightened, the first thing that happens is she gets a flood of adrenaline. Now, we know that if she was birthing in the jungle, that would be fantastic; if there was a wild animal coming towards her, it's not safe to give birth. The first muscle in a pregnant woman that will cut down is her cervix. So you can imagine it birthing beautifully, danger -- very noisy. Cervix goes boom; it's not safe. So then what's happening is the blood goes to her limbs ready to runaway to fight, the heart rate goes up. Now nowadays, when you still have the same fear but the actual danger doesn't exist in the same way that it did when we were designed. So what's happening is the flood of adrenaline is creating so much tension in her body for her birthing body which is the sort of the uterus and the pelvis tenses up, and you get the contractions, these long muscles are still going down, have to fight. Wendy Turner: Presumably, the medical profession is battering down your doors when you would think so for a whole variety of practical reasons to get hold of this technique. It's fantastic. Maggie Howell: Absolutely. In the last year, we've been contacted by almost 2000 health professionals, midwives, antenatal teachers, wanting to find out more information because they are now seeing more and more moms entering the hospitals in the kind of state that Chireal was talking about; being relaxed, confident, calm. Naturally that reduces the level of risk, reduces the need for intervention, reduces the length of labor which, of course, in monetary terms the NHS are going to be a big bonus. The most fundamental, it's giving women a sense of empowerment and control and that has naturally led to a reduction in caesarean rates, reduction in the need for epidurals. Now, I don't say that moms who use this, have to have this to get a natural birth. Not at all! It's about giving mom helping strategies, giving her techniques that she feels she can go into the experience being trusting in her body, confident and knowing she's got something she can do to help herself as long as she can. We get moms who do end up having caesareans but they say that when they get to that point, they feel so confident about their decision, they feel in control. We had one lady saying, she was the calmest person in the room at that point because what they've got these helping strategies which is women are not told that anymore. They are only talked to look all things that could go wrong which naturally creates a lot of fear and as we go back to beginning that fear creates the tension, and the tension creates the pain which then often leads to the levels of intervention and additional need for pain relief. Wendy Turner: Chireal, would you have any hesitation in using this method again willing to have another baby? Chireal Shallow: Well, if I was allowed, yes. Definitely, it was amazing. So I think -- singing Maggie's, because it worked for me and I felt relaxed, in control as I have said before and the fact that I was having twins and the medical staff at the hospital were very concerned and wanted to induce me and were considering a caesarean because one of my twins was lying transverse which is across. They felt that the only option for me was to have a caesarean. I didn't want that. I want to have natural birth and I believe that was possible but as most women do, when they listen to their consultant, they think, well, they are the professionals. So going along with their suggestions and then I spoke to Maggie. We've had really long conversation and then she said, well, just see how your body goes before you go into induction, just see if you can go into labor naturally, because obviously, if you have an induction, then it leads to more clinical interventions. So I wanted to start off naturally with the hope that I can continue naturally but of course, if it meant that I need to have a caesarean for the health of my babies then I would. But I started off naturally, used all the techniques in the CD and I had a really good birth even for Charlotte who was transverse and I managed to just turn around and I gave birth to her naturally as well. So it was a great experience. Wendy Turner: Well done. Well, all the CDs are available, the details will be on our website. Absolutely inspirational! Thank you for coming in today. Chireal Shallow: Thank you. Maggie Howell: Thank you very much.